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Munma – No Apologies [English/Polish]

ENG: The sun begins to rise over the horizon, it seems that it will be another sunny day. Distorted only by humming generators or the sound of a single car passing in the distance, silence is slowly becoming a memory. More and more human voices around. Laughter, quarrels… Beirut wakes up from its sleep.

Jawad Nawfal has already, somehow indirectly, ‘visited’ Santa Sangre. He was helping Elyse Tabet on the “Newfound Grids” album by Litter. Munma is Jawad’s unique project, and “No Apologies” is his first full-length production recorded under this name. Besides this Jawad has recorded three EPs, all released through the Lebanese Incognito Records.

It may seem exotic to us, but it turns out that electronic music is quite resilient in Lebanon and Jawad Nawfal is one of the scene’s most active entities. Munma, one of several of his projects, musically revolves around IDM sprinkled with a bit of ambient music. In fact, it isn’t that far of the aforementioned Litter project’s music. Munma offers the listener a journey through the great city. A journey that is restless, quivering, resembling a bike ride on congested roads, narrow streets, the crowds of people haggling in the old square. The heat pouring from the sky, sand biting into the eyes… Dynamic, broken rhythms intertwined with languorous, although quite serene electronic backgrounds. And around that a lot of glitches and interferences, symbols of the modern world.

It’s difficult not to mention the clearly marked accents specific to the musician’s provenance. In both aspects, rhythmic and melodic. It adds a nice, somewhat noble character to this, after all very modern music. The biggest surprise on “No Apologies” is undoubtely the sixth track, “Yoga Revisited” where we have an interesting guest, a man named Mazen El Sayed responsible for the lyrical and vocal layering of the track. Actually this is the only composition where regular vocals appear. And nothing would be out of the ordinary, if not for the fact that Mazen El Sayed… raps in Arabic. Pure arabic hip hop, yo! And it’s surprisingly damn intriguing, especially since it apparently is the most disturbing piece of “No Apologies”. I feel like I’ve deviated from my commonly frequented routes and entered into a forbidden zone, where it’s easy to get the regular asskicking. Nice stuff, you don’t have to apologize, Mr. Nawfal.

Is there anything to complain about on the album? If anything, it’s the sound. Too modern, too sterile and therefore sometimes too flat. Yes, the same compositions contain a lot of aural glitches, but generally I’d prefer if a certain sandy atmosphere would hover over the thing, a sort of aural simoom. Yet apart from that it’s an interesting position, on the one hand bearing cognitive advantages especially for the Western listener, on the other hand filled with professionally performed compositions, simply nice to listen to. Good job, Jawad and Syrphe Records.